Your pain is in your hip. Is it arthritis? You have sinus headaches. Is it a sinus infection? Your shoulder hurts. Could it be a rotator cuff injury?
It’s reasonable to think that your problem is where the pain is.
After all, that’s how everyone thinks about their pain. Especially when it comes to those chronic aches that drive people to pop painkillers, take sinus medications, and apply those stinky muscle ointments.
And when those band-aids don’t work, you go to the doctor or physician’s assistant, who also believes the problem is where the pain is.
He says an MRI might be in order for your hip. She orders an x-ray for your shoulder. They give you an even stronger anti-allergy medication to clear your sinuses.
Sometimes they find something on the MRI. Sometimes the x-ray gives you good information.
But more often than not, the doctor is just ruling things out. The MRI is normal and the x-ray says nothing. You are left without real answers why your aches and pains won’t go away.
When you don’t get the answers that you want, it is time to starting ask new questions. Like:
When you ask these new questions you might actually discover some of the answers you are seeking.
You might learn, for example, that you don’t have a hip problem, you have a problem with your posture affecting how you are walking and standing. With every move that you make there is unequal wear and tear on the whole spinal system, not just the hip.
You might learn, for example, that you don’t have a rotator cuff problem, you have spinal degeneration in your lower neck, showing up in your shoulder as an achy nerve pain. You can rehab the muscles all that you want, but the pressure on those nerves will not go away without addressing the neck
You might learn, for example, that you don’t have a problem with your sinuses, but a problem with chronic inflammation coming from an upper cervical subluxation—a problem with head-to-neck balance affecting blood flow in and out of the head. To you it feels like sinus pressure, but the problem is really coming from the spine.
The pain may be on one side of the body. But because the spines connects one one end of your body with the other, the spine is where you need to look to get the answers you are looking for.
In our Anchorage NUCCA upper cervical chiropractic practice, many people have learned that problems they thought were in one part of their body, were just a symptom of a deeper problem in their spine. One that is easy to identify. One that is usually correctable.
Is your chronic pain lying to you? Or are you just asking the wrong questions? We can help you ask the right questions by requesting a consultation at Anchorage chiropractic office.